Coffee House

Coffee house on the street Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Kiev, Ukraine

The founder of the coffee network was a Russian businessman Timur Khairutdinov ^[1] . According to information provided by the coffee house itself, the idea of ​​creating “Coffee House” was born in one of Milan’s famous coffee houses, and the first bartenders from Russia learned the art of brewing coffee in Italy with the leading barista Giuseppe Grasse. After the return of already trained young people in the autumn of September 29, 1999, the first coffee shop was opened in Moscow. Its location was the shopping center "Gallery Actor" ^[2] . By 2001, there were already 5 such establishments in Moscow. In May 2001, V.E. Dudakov became the general director (later president) of the company ^[3] . Dudakov received an economic education in the United States and has ten years of experience at McDonald's ^[4] . The demand for coffee houses was supported by serious investments, as a result of which after 3 years Coffee House became the largest coffee network in the country, increasing the number of its addresses by 10 times. December 19, 2003 Coffee House opened in St. Petersburg at number 13 on Bolshaya Konyushennaya. By 2006, about 30 coffee houses were opened in St. Petersburg, after which the management decided to create their own production workshop for the production of confectionery (and not only) products ^[5] . Over time, Coffee House has grown, and now the number of its establishments totals more than 200 in various cities of Russia and neighboring countries. The company opened its coffee houses in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk ^[6] , Yekaterinburg ^[7] , Kazan and Ukrainian Kiev.

Since 2004, the company has been developing the Asia Cafe Japanese restaurants; in 2006, a project of the Vinegret Cafe chain of Russian cuisine cafes was developed ^[8] .

"Coffee House" plans to rebrand and will reduce part of its employees. The new version of the cafe will be without waiters, orders will be accepted at the box office, and customers will have to pick them up on their own. Also, changes will affect the menu, remove full-fledged hot dishes, will be replaced by sandwiches, salads, yoghurts and snacks. ^[9]

In 2007, Coffee House tried to introduce self-service in a number of restaurants, trying to compete with the Starbucks chain that appeared on the Russian market at that time. Basil Vasilou, who previously managed the Starbucks network in the Middle East, was invited as a marketing manager. ^[10] However, the company was experiencing financial problems related to both internal causes and the general economic crisis. The contract with Vasilou was not renewed; the expansion of the Asia Cafe and Vinaigrette Cafe projects has been frozen ^[11] . Since 2007, the top managers of Expobank K. Yakubovsky, S. Radchenko and A. Vdovin became co-owners of the company ^[12] . Another 46% is owned by the Cyprus company Enor Enterprises, whose owner is T. Khairutdinov. 5% are in the hands of the president of the company V. I. Dudakov ^[13] . Expobank issued a loan to the Coffee House network on the security of the company's shares. In 2008, these shares were transferred to the British bank Barclays ^[11] .

In early 2014, negotiations began on the sale of a part of the coffee shop chain to the main competitor of Shokoladnitsa , but by the end of the summer of 2014 it became known that the chain was fully sold, including franchised coffee shops. The deal to transfer coffee houses Coffee House Shokoladnitsa completed on October 6, 2014. The new owner of the coffee houses does not plan to close them, however, some unprofitable and not interesting establishments will be redeveloped into Burger King or Wabi Sabi .

The Ukrainian branch was not included in the above transaction. By mid-2016, when the search for buyers began, the network totaled 17 establishments. By January 2018, there were already four of them, and the company itself suffered from counterparty debt, reduced revenues and freezing of funds on current accounts at AKTA Bank (which included the interim administration ^[14] ).

According to RBC for May 2011, “Coffee House” is one of the first places among chain restaurants in Moscow with affordable prices ^[15] .

No smoking is allowed in the restaurants of the chain. Many coffee houses are open in large shopping centers, at airports. In 2011, Coffee House was accused of overpricing coffee shops located at airports ^[16] . In addition, the English-language advertisement “Wi-Fi free” (“free Wi-Fi ”) without a Russian translation caused complaints from the OFAS ^[17] . Sometimes such dissatisfaction provokes the very English name of the company ^[18] .

On August 23, 2013, a scandal erupted in Ukraine related to the Coffee House policy. In accordance with the standards of the coffee shop network, in this country, employees are required to communicate with customers in Russian. In addition, in one of the establishments of the network in Kiev, the waiter scoffed at the fact of customer communication in Ukrainian. ^{[19] [20] The} director of the institution in which the incident occurred did not come to a meeting that day with journalists and a client, whom she was going to apologize for. ^{[21] [22]} In the second half of September 2013, it became known that Coffee House in Kiev abandoned the practice of using exclusively the Russian language in its establishments. This is stated in the letter of response of the head of the Kiev state administration Alexander Popov to the appeal of the people's deputy Vyacheslav Kirilenko . ^[23] Later, the network issued new rules, which indicated that the waiter should communicate with the guest in his language. ^[24]

In the summer of 2014, the Coffee House network became the object of attention of activists of the Do Not Buy Russian! ". Young people in Kiev institutions hold promotions ^[25] and flash mobs ^[26] , thus drawing the attention of visitors to the Russian origin of restaurants, motivating their behavior by the fact that part of the profit goes to the Russian Federation.

In December 1, 2015, the first legendary coffee house in the history of the existence of Coffee House, located in the Actor Gallery shopping center on Tverskaya, closed.

In 2018, the Coffee House coffee shop chain will carry out a global rebranding , about 15 of the 86 Moscow establishments currently operating in the network will be redone. In addition, the group expects to open another 30 points in an updated format in Moscow and St. Petersburg . There will be no more waiters in the establishments: guests will be served exclusively at the box office ^[27] .

• Official site Coffee House
• Collect all resource links
• History of KH
• Warning for using English